2017 U.K. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

GEARHEAD GARAGE SUPER PRO ET CURRENT STANDINGS

Due to work commitments Brad was extremely busy at work so once home from work we headed for Santa Pod and arrived at the track at 1130pm, our fantastic crew and team mates had already prepared the pit area and also built Brad’s car for us, great teamwork thank you !

We rose at 6.15 to prepare the car for scrutineering at 7am and Brad went and signed on, the car passed tech and we went back to our pit to prepare the car for qualifying, we hadn’t had time to test the car prior to the event so we planned a “half pass ” to ensure that everything checked out ok.

Q1 the car launched well but a cold track with poor grip resulted in Brad being 7 tenths of a second off our dial in, other drivers had the same issues and we still ended up in 7th position from 18 cars.

Everything was fine on the car, we just had a little bit of oil going into the catch can, this is normal following and engine rebuild until the piston rings bed in.

Q2 saw 21 cars make the field and by the time Brad made his run we had slipped to 13th place, a good solid second run at 1 tenth of a second of dial in saw Brad back in 7th place from the 21 cars that qualified, that was is for today so 2 more runs and the first round of eliminations tomorrow.

Q3 didn’t see any improvement so our Q2 time still stood and we now dropped to 11th place, this was not an ideal place meaning if nothing changed we would be facing the No1 qualifier in the first round.

Q4 brought another car into the field, Brad’s Nick good Motorsport team mate Chris Parker went to No1 with a time 3 thousandths of a second off his dial in, we had tried a little bit too hard, we dialled a time of 7.83 and ran 7.824 breaking out by 6 thousands of a second leaving Brad in 12th place and facing our team mate Chris Parker in round 1.

This is always a difficult situation for the team, we always prepare the cars identically and we also share a huge amount of data between the 2 cars, it was going to be an interesting 1st round, Chris has the No 1 on his car as the reigning Super Pro champion, Brad would need to be at the very top of his game.
As you would expect from these 2 high calibre contenders it was a very close race with Brad taking the win by 2 hundredths of a second.
Because Brad had beaten the No1 qualifier Brad had a bye run in round 2 so we were pleased to have an easy but well earned bye run.

Round 3 of eliminations Brad was drawn against an extremely competitive Gordon Northway who had been running bang on his times all weekend, once again Brad needed a flawless performance if he was to take the win, Brad cut an 0.0414 light to Gordon’s 0.0793 so it was going to be close, Brad ran a 7.862 0n a 7.85 dial in to Gordon’s 8.521 on a 8.51 dial in, giving Brad the victory by 3 hundredths of a second.
In the semi final Brad again ran very close to his dial in and beat Alan Didwell to see Brad in the final of the first meeting of the year, facing a strong contender from the Netherlands , John Gerritsen in a brand new 55 Chevy running in the 6 second bracket.

In the final Brad cut a great 0.071 light to John’s .165 so Brad had the lead, but with a car almost 2 seconds quicker than Brad’s it would be all on the dial in’s !

Used with the kind permission of the original photographer Ian Blackett @ www.ianblackett.co.uk

Both car’s broke out but Brad’s was the larger breakout at just over 2 hundredths of a second to John’s 2 thousandths of a second, giving the victory to the Dutchman, his journey back to Holland would be a far happier long drive !
Well done to John and a fantastic job of driving a car that was out of shape, he pulled his parachutes to keep the car straight and kept his foot on the gas to pip Brad at the stripe, great piece of driving and a well deserved victory.

We had a great first meeting and bagged a valuable haul of championship points finishing the weekend as the runner up, we do it all again in 2 weeks time at Shakespeare County Raceway where Brad is the current APIRA Super Pro Champion and is looking forward to defend his title, it is also Brad’s 21st Birthday that weekend so let’s hope it will be a very Happy Birthday !

Aaron Fensome
New Lucas Oil Driver

It was great to see the new Lucas Oil backed driver Aaron Fensome take the runner up spot in the Lucas Oil Junior Dragster Championship, Aaron felt great in the car in his new bespoke HRX suit from www.racewearonline.com

I would like to say a big thank you to all our sponsors, Lucas Oil both in the UK and the USA, Pentagon Corporate Fleet, D & S signs, Martin Williams Hull, HRX ,Racewearonline, our associates Pete Walters race design last but not least Six B Apparel in the USA.

We would like to thank all our sponsors and crew because without everyone’s support we couldn’t achieve this level of competition and success, thank you to everyone for being involved in this team

Some of the Images used with the kind permission of the original photographer tog@Eurodragster.com unless stated, Thank you.

This weekend is the season opening for 2017 !

This weekend is the season opening meeting, the Festival of Power at Santa Pod Raceway.

In January 2016 Brad’s car was on the Lucas Oil stand at the Autosport International Racing Car Show at the NEC in Birmingham, when the show was finished the team stripped the car and the engine and gearbox were sent away for a refresh, the chassis was checked and the old wrap was removed and a new wrap for 2016 was applied.

All this work meant that we were cutting it fine to make the FOP 2016, so lesson learnt , as soon as we finished the season in 2016 the car was stripped and refreshed and the 2017 wrap applied, all this work was completed before the 2017 Autosport show !

This year it has seemed very strange not to have any work to do since January apart from a general check over by Nick and Cristiann last weekend.

We are looking forward to seeing the car on the track so we can get some action photo’s of the car, we think this years design is the best yet ! We also think the 2017 team wear is pretty cool too !

We will be posting the action live from the track on both our facebook and twitter feeds that will be on the home page at bradjacksonracing.com

It is a sad day for Lucas Oil USA fans as Lucas announce pulling out of Top Fuel racing in the USA, Morgan Lucas is to commit to the business and this doesn’t leave time to fully commit to the Top Fuel team, with a staggering $3,500,000 USD needed per car to compete a full season the decision has been made to quit.
Here is a link to a cool video featuring Morgan on One day in Pomona

National Finals

Santa Pod Raceway

23rd – 25th September 2016

A little disappointed, but a fantastic winning year !

We arrived at Santa Pod on Friday and set up the pit and awning, we scrutineerd the car and then had a relaxing time before the event started with 3 qualifying runs on Saturday.

The UK Championship was very close with any one of the first 5 competitors in with a chance of taking the UK National Championship crown; Brad was lying in 2nd place and we were hopeful of a great event.
The first round I dialled a 7.76 and Brad ran a 7.80, 4 hundredths of a second off the dial in, this time placed Brad in 5th position so was a great start to the day.

The second round I dialled a 7.79 and Brad ran a 7.82, 3 hundredths of a second off the dial in, although this was a slight improvement due to the others improving this dropped us to 7th.

The third and final qualifier was crucial especially for the qualifying points, I dialled a 7.81 to try and get us nearer the top.

Brad came round and did a burnout, I felt the sun had been on the track and my instinct told me we were going to run quicker so just before I took Brad to the line I changed our dial in to 7.79, Brad ran 7.795 a great result, 5 thousandths of a second over the dial in put us in 3rd place. The car and Brad were performing well so we looked forward to the eliminations on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning brought a little rain shower so the start was delayed by about an hour. The first round of eliminations made interesting reading, Billy Gane (No 1 in the championship ) against Scott Hauser (No 3 in the championship) and Brad ( No 2 in the championship ) against Ian Powell ( no 4 in the championship) if you were a betting man then you would have got some very long odds against that happening ! Chris Parker (No 5 in the championship) had a bye run due to being No1 qualifier.

Scott beat Billy and Ian beat Brad, this now meant that Scott only had to go 2 rounds of eliminations to be champion for the 3rd time.

Ian Powell dialled 8.13 and ran 8.131, with a reaction time of 0.04 was a clear winner, it is a little strange when we talk in these numbers that Brad’s package was 0.0241, 2 hundredths of a second off our prediction and Ian’s package was 0.0017, 17 thousandths of a second of his prediction that we say Ian had an easy win by 0.1465 of a second.

Scott, Ian and Chris all went through the next round so one more round and Scott would be champion, in the next round Scott unfortunately broke out by 5 thousandths of a second so now the first 3 coming into the event had all been eliminated !

Natalie was treated by Nick and Wayne to a passenger ride in the 2 seated dragster, her ride resulted in a run of 7.88 seconds at 168 mph, Natalie now has the bug and would like to drive a dragster!

We would like to thank all of our sponsors and supporters for their help, Bradjacksonracing.com couldn’t have had this level of success in the hardest class in Europe without your help!

Well Done Nick Good Motorsport!

Ian and Chris both went all the way and met in the final, the maths were simple, win the meeting, win the UK Championship, who would it be?
The winner was Chris Parker! Ian unfortunately red lit and cost himself a chance of the being the champion!
Congratulations to Chris on taking the championship, Chris drives another of our teams dragsters so well done Nick good Motorsport!

We would like to thank our wonderful crew, Nick Good, Christiann Carlo, Natalie Cooper and of course Alison, Brad’s mum, who has kept us all wonderfully fed throughout the season!

Although we feel a little disappointed today we gave it a really good shot and Brad has had a fantastic year winning the Open Sports Nationals and retaining his APIRA Super Pro Championship title for the second year in a row.

He also won the FIA European Finals meeting at Santa Pod, this is the highlight of the year for Brad, he had been runner up in this event in his junior dragster in 2010 when he was just 14 and red lit, so he has always wanted to win this event and lay that ghost to rest !

We are already planning our assault on the championship in 2017 and we will be presenting the car in a new livery at the Autosport International Motor Show in January so why not drop by and say hello?

FIA / FIM European Championships Finals

Santa Pod Raceway

8th – 11th September 2016

“Brad wins again”

We arrived at Santa Pod late on Wednesday night due to Brad’s work commitments so it was an early start on Thursday morning with Qualifying 1 due at 0930. Brad and Wayne were up at 6.30 to get signed on and the car scrutineered and back in the pits to get the car ready for Q1.

There were 39 cars entered for a 32 car field and this event attracts the best racers from many European countries so we were aware of how close qualifying would be. We started with a solid tenth of a second of dial in and this got us into the field at no 12, the next round we didn’t improve and had slipped to 20th and were conscious this was going to be a tough day.

The 3rd session Wayne dialed a 7.78 and we ran a 7.7867, 6 thousands of a second off the dial in put us in the field at number 7, over the next 4 sessions through Thursday and Friday we came close to improving, 7 thousands over and 3 thousands under the dial in but 6 thousands found us in 8th place, we were very happy with this position.

Incredibly a new record was set for the class with the first 13 places under 1 hundredth of a second, the previous best had been 8 !!

Saturday brought heavy rain and even though the track crew tried to dry the track after the rain had ceased by the afternoon, they couldn’t dry the shut down area so the track crew call the meeting for the day.

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day (all day) we went straight into eliminations, this was going to be a little tricky with not running the car for 2 days, but all the other teams were in the same situation. Our first round opponent was Mo Blackburn, a very experienced Super Pro racer, Wayne dialled a 7.75 and the car ran 7.77, Brad’s 0.02 of a second reaction time was a big factor in Brad taking the win.

We would like to thank all crew, especially Natalie Cooper who helped me (Wayne) service the car many times this weekend in quick succession, great work Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo and Alison for keeping the crew fed all weekend !

In round 2 Brad was drawn against Bernard Saz , Bernard’s team are from Andorra and put a huge effort into coming from the mountains between Spain and France to race at Santa Pod. Bernard has finally got his car running low 7 seconds and consistent, Brad cut another 0.02 light to Bernard’s 0.29 light so Brad took the win.

The next round Brad was facing Scott Hauser, Scott is currently the most successful driver in Super Pro with 2 championships in the last 3 years and multiple event wins, Scott’s father Geof Hauser is also one of the UK’s drag racing pioneers and has been in the sport since its inception in the 1960’s. Hauser race cars also build some of the very best cars in Europe.

The last time Brad and Scott met Brad red lit gifting the race to Scott, Brad was determined not to go red again! Brad pulled a 0.009 light to Scott’s 0.1014 light so the chasing Scott never caught Brad and also broke out in his effort to catch Brad, Brad loved this win and found it very satisfying after the pressure he had been under before this match up.

So we were in the semi-finals! Brad’s next race was with Pete Walters, another ex Junior Dragster Driver, and both Pete and Brad had been waiting for this match for a while! Brad once again took the advantage with a 0.0861 reaction to Pete’s 0.1363 but Pete’s car threw a con rod just before the stripe and Brad was in the Final!

Brad had made the European Final in Junior Dragster but red lit and lost; Brad has always felt that this was one that he gave away so was even more determined than usual that he wouldn’t make the same mistake.

The final was against Tom Atkinson, another very good and very clever racer, Brad and Wayne discussed at length what tactic to use with the dial in and a plan was in place, Brad cut another fantastic light, 0.044 to Tom’s 0.178 so Brad just had to make sure he didn’t breakout, Brad didn’t and now had won the event!

The win was sweet; Brad had won the most prestigious event we race at! Brad had also won the previous meeting, The Open Sports National, so two wins in a row has put Brad in a position where he can win the UK National championship at Santa Pod in 2 weeks time, the anticipation is already beginning to build with 5 drivers mathematically in with a chance of winning the championship, we are waiting for the results to be ratified but the Euro’s win has elevated Brad into second place in the championship so it’s going to be a really exciting weekend at the National Finals.

Brad also had a surprise on Friday when Liz, Brads girlfriend, had arranged for her and 4 of Brads friends to come to Santa Pod for their first look at Drag Racing, needless to say they had a fantastic weekend and really felt involved in the event and felt the excitement that our “winner and loser” every round sport delivers !

Open Sports Nationals 27th – 29th August 2016

Shakespeare County Raceway

Stratford upon Avon

Champion Again!!

After the long summer break Alison and I set off for Stratford in the RV and Brad was coming down later due to College commitments in Milton Keynes, Brad loves driving his pride & joy , his classic MX5, so was quite happy to join us later.

Last year Brad had won the APIRA championship but we were a lowly 6th in the championship and needed some of the contenders above us to exit early and Brad to win the meeting to have any chance of retaining his title.

The crew had worked on the car during the break and had changed the torque convertor in an effort to increase the cars consistency so we were eagerly waiting to see how the car would perform. We had also fitted a cross brace in the chassis to improve the car’s stability so the teams expectations’ were high.

Our first qualifying session went well and Brad was in 7th position, unfortunately it then rained and we didn’t get any further runs in on the day. We had the company of Lucas Oil UK’s MD Les Downey and his wife Mo with us for the weekend and Les kept us laughing (as always) with his wit and anecdotes

After studying the data we changed the launch chip and looked forward to Sunday, Sunday was a great day with really good weather, we had 5 qualifying runs, and Brad reported that the car was running “strong & straight”, we had a great day and Brad finished the day in 11th place.

Monday was again a great day with the weather being hot and sunny,

In the 1st round we were drawn against Jack Brewster, an ex Super Pro champion, Jack red lit and gifted us an easy win on what would have been a tough race, Jack was also one of the competitors in front of Brad and also Ian Powell went out in round 1, another competitor in front of Brad in the championship, so this helped Brad’s cause.

I would like say a huge thank you to Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo for their dedication in preparing a great car !!

Round 2 we were drawn against Pete Walters but unfortunately Pete had holed a piston so was a no show, we had an easy round, but hey, you have to take them especially after the bad luck the team has had this year!

The championship now looked a real possibility with Chris Parker leading and Rick Cook in front of Brad on points, Brad drew Rick Cook in the semi finals, Chris Parker was racing Bob Doyle.

In the semi’s Brad beat Rick Cook and Chris Parker red lit leaving the final between Brad and Bob Doyle, a quick calculation showed if Brad won the meeting he would also be the APIRA champion for the second time, if Bob won then Chris Parker would take the championship and Brad would be runner up!

Brad and I had a discussion and we decided on our dial in together. Brad cut a great 0.04 light to Bob’s 0.13 so Brad had the edge and drove a great race to take the win!

The calculations show that Brad winning the event had taken the championship by just 80 point’s, less than a round win!

So Brad Jackson Racing love “Shakey” with 2014 runner up spot in the championship and 2015 & 2016 winning the championship, this is now a track the team really have a handle on !

We had a great weekend with Les and Mo, and it was great to see them both enjoy a race meeting in a quieter venue where Les was able to relax and just be part of the team for the weekend.

We would like to thank Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo for their dedication in preparing a great car for Brad, and of course a big thank you to all our sponsors, we couldn’t do it without your support!

This picture shows the champion leaving the track in his pride and joy heading for College Milton Keynes for the rest of the week!

We are now looking forward to the European Finals at Santa Pod in 2 weeks time!

We were looking forward to the Summer Nationals, Brad had had 3 recent big slides in the car so we had taken the car to Hauser race cars for an additional cross brace welding in the chassis to see if this eliminated the loss of traction Brad had been experiencing.

We decided to test the car before the event so we headed to Santa Pod on Thursday night so we could get a full days testing Friday, we set up the awning and equipment and then we were ready to test the car, we also had Brad’s girlfriend Lizz standing in for Natalie as Brad’s back up girl so Lizz was a little bit nervous at first but took to her role really well.

Brad’s first run went very well and Brad reported that the car felt fine and ran down the track feeling a lot smoother, we did however find our recurring engine problem had returned, the data showed we had a poor cylinder on number 8 so Nick and Cristiann reset the injection system. Unfortunately it then decided to rain and it continued to rain all day so that was the extent of our test day.

Saturday morning brought qualifying and in round 1 Brad ran an 8.02 on a 7.70 dial so we knew we still had the gremlins! Again Nick and Cristiann work tirelessly to find a solution and after more adjustments we were ready for the 2nd round of qualifying.

We ran a 7.88 on a 7.70 dial so with the car still not quite right had to settle for 12th place from 19 qualifiers due to a rain shower earlier in the day causing us to run out of time with the noise curfew coming into play.
Sunday morning brought the first round of eliminations, we were still not sure if we had fixed the car and Wayne dialled a 7.78 to give Brad a chance to chase down the very experienced Tom Atkinson , the number 3 qualifier, this tactic worked and Brad took the win against the breakout time of Tom’s.

Brad reported the car the felt fine and the data showed that the car was now back on form.

Wayne was now able to dial a time that we knew the car would run, in the second round of eliminations Brad had his old junior dragster adversary Joe Kellett, Wayne dialled a 7.76 and the car ran a 7.77 but Brad had an uncharacteristic red light and we were out.

Brad was very disappointed with the red light but this is only the second red light he has pulled in competition in the last 3 years of racing so the team told Brad not to beat himself up about it.

We take some positives from the weekend that the car handles a lot better with the cross brace and the fact that we hopefully have eliminated the fuelling gremlins that we have had this year!

We now break for the summer but are already looking forward to the next meeting, the Open Sports Nationals at Shakespeare county raceway on the holiday weekend at the end of August, the car is ready,

Brad is ready and the team are ready!

Bring it on!

Santa Pod Video

See If you can Spot Us !!

We eagerly awaited this event following a poor start to the season, this event attracts racers from all over Europe and it is a meeting that Brad really enjoys. The weather forecast was great and it looked like we would have a full weekend of action.
We had some guests for the event and we also had 2 sponsors at the event, Les Downey and his wife Mo from Lucas Oil UK , and Keith West from Pentagon.
We arrived on Thursday and set up the pits, we had 3 Lucas Oil dragsters competing this weekend so it was going to be busy because all 3 dragsters were in the same class.
Friday qualifying showed us that we has 6 rounds of qualifying so we would get plenty of track time, our first run Wayne dialled 7.72 but Brad ran a 7.707 breaking out by just over 100th of a second, the second run the car ran slower, the data didn’t show anything wrong so we changed the fuel ratio, the third run was even slower so we realised we had a problem. We checked the car over and couldn’t find anything untoward so took the rocker covers off and found two tight rockers, we made a decision not to run the car but due to our other 2 cars qualifying, Nick Good and Chris Parker, the crew were busy servicing these cars.

At around 4pm we decided to investigate further, this resulted in the cylinder heads and the sump being removed and we found 2 pistons had broken rings. I went to see Goef Hauser from Hauser Race Cars, http://www.hauserracing.com , and Geof kindly offered to open his workshop for us, this is a great gesture for 2 reasons, we race against his son Scott and secondly it was already 7pm,

What a great sportsman and a great gentleman!

I got the parts back for the crew and Nick and Cristiann worked until the small hours getting the engine rebuilt, they finished about 0130 but due to the noise curfew we had to wait until 9 o’clock the following day before we could try the engine.
The next morning the engine ran perfectly and although we were on the back foot and in last place we thought we would be able to recover the situation. We were wrong, the car launched really well but then wouldn’t shift into 2nd gear, Brad aborted this run, back at the pit’s we found a wire has come loose on the shifter solenoid, not related at all to the engine problem just a real piece of bad luck. There was then a huge accident in Pro Mod which resulted in a 2 hour delay, pleased to say the driver wasn’t too badly injured, but again our day was done.
Here’s the video;-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqLlAY2-3lc

Sunday we realised we would only get 1 more qualifying chance, with no data yet Wayne had to take an educated guess and his stab was almost 2 tenths of a second over his dial in and this was only good enough for 28th place in the 32 car field, but at least the car was fine and we were in the show.
A little later in the day brought the first round of eliminations and we were against Wouter van Leersom from the Nederlands, this is where our weekend improved, he had some trouble and Brad was through the first round of eliminations.
Round 2 brought a little irony that we were drawn against team mate Nick Good, Nick prepares our car and this would be an interesting race, Nicks car is a blown alcohol car and reaches over 200mph in 6 seconds, however Nick still knew he needed a good light against Brad and tried too hard and red lit gifting the win to Brad! Our joy was short lived when we saw that Brad now had an oil leak that would be tricky to repair. Nick and Cristiann again worked hard to repair the car for Brad and once again we looked forward to the quarter finals.
Monday we woke up to a slight bit of moisture in the air, the track was dry and Santa Pod ran the pro cars first, our race took place around 1pm, Brad holeshot Ian Powell with a 0.053 reaction to Ian’s 0.105 giving Brad the advantage when the car lost traction and swerved to the right, Brad fought the car valiantly but had to lift gifting the race to Ian, congratulations to Ian. There is a short video on my (Wayne Jackson) timeline on facebook, if you look closely you can just see Brad getting out of shape as the video ends.

Summary, Nick always delivers Brad a great car but this weekend it decided to test our commitment, it lost!
We never give in until it’s over, and for Brad to reach the last 8 in this competitive FIA event was a great result for the team and keeps our championship aspirations alive!